On May 6th, having just returned from quick trips to Cleveland and Atlanta, I attended with my wife the round table debate “Curiosity, Understanding, and Utility: Science and the Creative Economy” held at the City University of New York Graduate Center`s Proshansky Auditorium.
William Bialek, director of the Graduate Center`s Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences, moderated a discussion with Jennifer Tour Chayes, distinguished scientist and managing director of Microsoft Research New England and Microsoft Research New York City; Fernando Pereira, research at Google; and Chris Wiggins, chief data scientist at the New York Times and faculty member in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics at Columbia University.
For my wifes birthday I acquired a piece of art from <a title="https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/pawel-althamer" href="https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/pawel-althamer" target="_blank">Paweł Althamers “The Neighbors”, which run through April 13 at the New Museum in New York city.
Since the early 1990s, Althamer (b. 1967 Warsaw, Poland) has established a unique artistic practice featuring an expanded approach to sculptural representation and consistently experimental models of social collaboration.
It was great to discuss with a museum curator which piece to select (we agreed without a doubt), and it`s a pleasure to have this piece in the living room of our Chelsea apartment.
Since I was in Barcelona last April, I took the opportunity to shoot this video (“Change in the medical imaging computational paradigm”) as an introduction to the classes I teach (“Clinical innovation in networked medical imaging”) at the Telemedicine Master`s Degree, Open University of Catalonia:
April 8 to 17 I travelled to Valencia and Barcelona (Spain).
In Barcelona I participated in the II Emergence Forum by Transbio Sudoe, a gathering of academics, companies & technological platforms from Spain, France, Portugal with the objective of setting up collaborative projects. I gave a lecture and participated in an expert panel.
The event allowed me to meet very interesting people, and visiting the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (with its Mare Nostrum supercomputer, in the most amazing set-up you could even imagine) and the Barcelona Scientific Park.
March 25 Google NY invited me to their Google Cloud Platform presentation in their Chelsea offices, 8 blocks away from my apartment.
Besides the interesting new features (here are the videos), and the delicious and healthy lunch buffet, I networked quite a lot, and had a few laughs about the highest concentration of Google Glasses per person I have seen so far. One thing is clear: genomics, which is one of the main things my two companies deal with, and the cloud, are closely related, and they will be even more in the near future.
Here are my travel destinations for the next three months (I`m afraid Asia will have to wait until Autumn):
Santiago (Chile) Buenos Aires (Argentina) Montevideo (Uruguay) New York (USA) Madrid (Spain) Nice (France) London (UK) Stuttgart (Germany) Basel (Switzerland) Valencia (Spain) Marseille (France) Genoa (Italy) Rome (Italy) Palermo (Italy) La Goulette (Tunisia) Palma de Mallorca (Spain) Barcelona (Spain) Stockholm (Sweden)
My wife took me to the amazing and discreet Japanese restaurant Kyo Ya for my birthday last month. What an amazing treat!
The menu were 11 courses that were all incredibly delicious:
“Zatsuki”: Spring Gobo Kara-age with Sansho Salt “Sakizuke”: Silky White Turnip Tofu Uni, Caviar, Umadashi-an “Oshinogi”: Ginger Sticky Mochi Rice Arima Sansho Miso-yaki “Owan”: Hakusai Cabbage Potage Tricolor Saitomo Patato Dango “Zensai”: Watercress Yellow Chive and Grilled Shitake Ohitashi; Oyster Moto-yaki on the Shell; Snow Crab and Yamato Potato Isobe-age; “Noresore” Noodle Like a Fresh Baby Sea Eel; Poached Hotaru Squid with Wakame Seaweed “Otsukuri”: Sashimi of the Day (Chef`s Selection) “Yakimono”: Washu Tajima Beef Hot Stone Grill; Sawara Spanish Mackerel Wakasa-yaki; Green Asparagus, Renkon and Shitake “Nimono”: Clay Potato Soup with Mozzarella Cheese, Ebishinjo, Turnip, Carrot, Wood Ear Mushroom and Poached Quail Egg “Tomezakama”: Braised Baby Octopus, Apple and Broccoli Rabe, Califlower and Kiwi Puree Vinegar “Oshokuji”: Canadian Shishamo and Yaki-daikon Kamadaki Rice, Asari Clam Miso Soup and Pickles Desert: Kyoya “Monaka” Red Bean Sandwich and Soba-cha Sorbet
